West By God Virginia

Mountain Momma (and Poppa and Baby):

We're still vacationing in West Virginia (this is where Frank's peeps are from), and it is soooo relaxing. We've eaten great meals, played Mexican Train Dominoes, gone to a movie without shelling out an extra $40 for a babysitter (thanks, Granddad and Mamaw), eaten more great food, shopped at Gabriel Brothers for shirts that have one sleeve slightly longer than the other, but they only cost $2.99!, taken pictures of the deer that come into the neighbor's yard for corn each afternoon, and done all the traditional gift-giving, football-game watching, and meal eating -- do you detect a theme? -- that occurs at Christmas time.

Both of Frank's siblings (Robert and Laura) are fantastic photographers with "phelomenal" (Rob taught me that word) cameras, so we've also had a few Sophie photo shoots. These are just a few pics taken in the woods behind the Webster house (and one of Sophie in the front yard navigating the hills of West Virginia -- a bit steeper than the hills of Central Texas). We'll be home soon and I'll post more of the Christmas pics!

Guess Who Came to Town?

While Frank and I were in the back bedroom doing laundry and packing for our trip to West Virginia, we heard a bit of rustling in the living room. Looks like Santa has been here and taken care of his Santa bidness. Now we wait...

Merry Christmas to all!

An Ode to My Laney Friend

Laney and Sophie go to the park with Nini. Laney and Sophie share noodles. Laney and Sophie sit on Father Time's lap when their parents force them to.

We're embarking on two weeks without Laney and it is so, so, sad. Sophie keeps looking around for her Laney friend and her Nini (Melanie).

This week, after looking into a couple of daycare situations for next year, Frank, Maggie, and I had to go have a drink. Or three. One place seemed perfect at first, but the director was CRAZ-O! and told us that she still had accidents and launched into a rant about how pull-ups are all a marketing scam. Methinks she should look into them.

The other place we're looking at is called "Lord of the Flies for Babies" (according to Nancy, anyway) because the place is a bit...ummm...Austinstyle. Clarification: South Austin -- even better! I second-hand quote, "Those damn hippies let the kids crap in a corner." And if you look on their website, there are a bunch of kids with savage-looking face paint creating art with recycled materials because it's good for their spirits. Sigh.

I know that Sophie needs to get out of the house and interact with others. I know that she'll be ready, at two, for some kind of "curriculum," but the best place, the most loving place, the safest place -- is right here at home with Laney and Nini (and boring Mom and Dad). Like rocking her to sleep and listening to her sweet babble noises, I kind of wish it could last forever.

But don't worry. Frank and I don't believe in homeschool. We'll shove her right into the system when the time comes.

Not not Night, Night

Frank and I used to joke about teaching Sophie the wrong word for something, just to see what linguistic effect we might really have on her. (You know, every time we hold up a pencil, we say "banana!" just to see when and how she might figure out that we've been messing with her.) A co-worker of mine used to think that there was a distinction between "birthday ice cream" and "regular ice cream." Turns out, her parents were just feeding her cottage cheese and telling her it was "regular." We decided that was so very, very wrong, and so very, very "irregular," and therefore abandoned all thoughts of linguistic experimentation.

Inadvertantly, though, there has been a screw-up in the Sophie synapses. We have begun the weaning process, see, and now I just nurse Sophie down at night and when she first wakes up. And every evening we say things like, "Are you almost ready for night night?" and "Time for night night now" and there's even an entire song that repeats the "Night, night, Sophie" sentiment right at the same time that she is...you guessed it: nursing. So yesterday, as soon as I got home from work, Sophie ran to me saying, "Night, night. Night, night." And she had just woken up from a nap. And she kept saying it for three more hours. This morning when I got her out of her crib she greeted me with a hearty "Night, night!" and some groping. Now we're never sure if she's tired or hungry. So much for communication.

It's Santa, Baby!

The Websters and the Hudoshi's (Brian and Kavita) headed out to the Trail of Lights for the opening night ceremonies. Aimee got us on the guestlist for Asleep at the Wheel (they were playing the main entertainment stage), so we got to ride through the trail on a fancy horse-drawn wagon. I'm pretty sure it was the first time she had ever seen a horse, but she didn't really blink an eye -- just sort of stared at all the horses as if they were overgrown doggies. Without any prompting whatsoever, Sophie began blowing kisses to the folks lined up on the parade route. She seemed interested in the lights, but much more interested in the jingling of the bells and the music piped through the park. When we rolled past the music stage, this little helper elf ran back to our carriage and said, "This is the Asleep at the Wheel wagon -- let these folks out!" So the whole procession stopped while we exited the carriage. I began blubbering "Uh...we're not really the band. We just know the daughter of the sound guy....," but Frank was yelling a hello to Ray Benson like we go waaayyyy back. Sophie started dancing like a wind-up toy and Ray Benson actually told her hello and said she was the best dancer there. (Beam beam beam) Then we walked down to Santa's Village before all the riff raff (foot traffic not cool enough to be mistaken for someone important) could make their way through the trail, and Sophie was the very first kid to sit on Santa's lap. She was actually pretty cool with it -- we were all prepared for screams and hysteria. But she was down with the Santa man.

Sophie's Stats

Sophie had her 15 month Well-Child Check with Dr. Geoff yesterday. Here are her most recent statistics:

Weight: 23 lbs. (50th percentile)
Height: 32 1/4 inches (90th percentile)
Head Size: 17 1/2 inches (10th percentile)

So...she's a tall, skinny pinhead. And a really, really cute one.

Also, she's been saying more advanced words lately. Just repeating what we say, really, but we're amazed every time. Frank taught her to say "lake" when we went to Mineral Wells State Park. Three days ago she was looking at the cover of a Tom Sawyer book and I said, "That's Tom. He's eating an apple." And she said, "apple," clear as a bell. Then I made the sign for apple, and now when we say the word she says "ap" and makes the sign. And last night, when Brian was babysitting her and they were petting (smacking) the dog, he said "gentle" and she repeated him. Of course, she kept on smacking the dog.

Helping Dad with the lights

Frankisms heard tonight:

"No, don't put it in your mouth. It's called electricity."

"Didn't these lights twinkle last year?"

"Hey look, her cheeks are glowing."

Holiday Cheer

There's a ho-ho-whole lot of fun being had at the Webster household. We pulled down the Christmas boxes from the attic and Sophie is having great fun exploring new things. She LOVES the Santa hat that I had to wrestle onto her for last year's Christmas card; in fact, she puts it on all by herself every morning and even says "hat." We set up the wooden Noah's ark in her room to play with -- I'm not sure why I keep the ark with the Christmas stuff, I just always have. (Lettin' my old testament mingle with the new.) Every stocking and ornament is so interesting to her this year -- it's making the holiday season such a blast. While I was up in the attic today looking for more lights, I found a doll that I used to carry around when I was Sophie's age. It's got some pretty freaky eyes, and when I handed it to Sophie she blinked at it several times, said "hmmm" and then gave it a kiss. She's got the Christmas spirit, I tell ya.

Happy Barfsgiving OR The Plague Hits Austin

This was the calm before the storm. About 20 minutes after this sweet shot of our critters snoozing on the ride up to the farm in Weatherford, Sophie vomited all over herself, the car seat, and me. And as I count my blessings, I am thankful for travel wipes, truckstops that are open even on Thanksgiving Day, removeable car seat covers, a husband that isn't afraid of vomit, and a kid that waited over 15 months to introduce her newbie parents to babybarf. At first I thought she was just car sick or that the milk she was drinking had gone bad. She was smiling and happy right after she got sick, and we thought that it was all over.

Until Saturday night. Then I started vomiting. And on Monday night, Laney's parents were cussing out "Typhoid Stacy" as they cleaned up after Laney. Then it took down our Nanny, Nini. And her husband. And as bad as this all is (and despite all the Clorox wipes I've gone through wiping down our entire house), this is STILL a success story. I don't know if I should attribute it to breastfeeding or the postponing of daycare or the fact that we let her eat dirt now and then to build up her immune system, but Sophie is one healthy kid! Let's hope her Dad has the same luck avoiding this plague...

I Never Wanted to Be a Blogger

Welcome to the new everything-you-want-to-know-about-Sophie journal designed for everyone-who-knows-and-loves-Sophie.

I resisted the world of Blogger for a while, thinking I could keep my own journal online and maintain design autonomy. Turns out, I'm not really a web designer. My middle school yearbook experience only got me so far. It's important to recognize our own limitations.

Besides...I really like the commenting feature of this site. So lest I have blogger's remorse, be sure to send a few comments my way from time to time!

And if you ever want to re-read "Sophie: the Early Months," it still lives out there in cyberspace:
http://www.frankandstacy.net/html/journal.html